Pop rockers Keane gave their fans an early Christmas gift with a socially-distanced cover of the Simon and Garfunkel classic Bridge Over Troubled Water following an online public vote. The iconic ballad – which was first released in 1970 – has previously been covered by the likes of Aretha Franklin, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Peggy Lee and Willie Nelson.
A statement from the band posted on Twitter said: “Some of the wonderful people on Thread, our official fan community, have been voting for the song they’d most like to hear us cover this Christmas. We’ve been keeping an eye on it and after seeing that Bridge Over Troubled Water by Simon & Garfunkel won the vote we gave it a shot from our respective living rooms. We hope you enjoy it and can’t thank you enough for your support over the last year. Wishing you and your loved ones a Merry Christmas on behalf of us all.”
Keane were first catapulted to international stardom off their back of their 2004 debut album Hopes and Fears, which shifted some 2.8 million copies in the UK alone. The record spawned a succession of hits across the globe; including Everybody’s Changing, Somewhere Only We Know, Bedshaped and This Is The Last Time. Over the eight years that followed, the East Sussex outfit went on to secure a further three chart-topping albums in Britain: 2006’s Under The Iron Sea; 2008’s Perfect Symmetry and 2012’s Strangeland.
Their latest offering, 2019’s Cause and Effect, also reached number two in the UK Albums Chart and bagged a BPI silver certification. The LP was hailed by critics for its more experimental edge and emotional depth, with the Guardian declaring that the group were “no longer the paragons of nicey-niceness they once seemed.” Meanwhile NME noted that the record – which followed well-publicised struggles with relationship breakdown and addiction – “shines with a redemption that you’d have to be pretty cold-hearted to not smile at.”
Keane keyboard player and lyricist Tim Rice-Oxley spoke about the emotional toil that had informed the themes of the record in an interview with Riff Magazine earlier this year. He said “It’s kind of emotionally intense, a little more cohesive than anything we’ve done before. It tells the story of a relationship breakdown; my marriage, specifically. And it talks about everything that comes out of that—the fallout—the good stuff and bad stuff.”
He added: “We’ve had a little break and are now in a better place, mentally. The happiest I feel about the songs I’ve written is when I hear the stories about how those songs help to bring people back from very difficult times in their own lives.”
Whilst Keane were one of a number of groups to see their international touring commitments for 2020 scuppered by the COVID-19 pandemic, they did dish out two singles this year: I’m Not Leaving and Phases, the fifth and sixth releases from Cause and Effect respectively. Phases, released as a single this October, sees the band in a typically reflective lyrical mood: “Phases, the motion of our lives/ Ages, the rote of changes/ Erases the ink before it dries on pages/ It’s all just phases/ And sometimes you feel how good it is/ And low tide gives way to high tide/ And hard times, we watch them come and go like crazes, it’s all just phases.”
